In a breathtaking display of bureaucratic pyjama-flapping, FIFA has finally confessed what any punter with a plastic cup of warm larger and a vague sense of spatial awareness has known for years: the World Cup concourse is a heaving, sausage-like press of humanity, while the seats sit in frigid, empty splendour. The revelation came yesterday, causing the UK government to clutch its safety regulations like a Victorian maiden clutching her smelling salts.
Let us paint the scene, shall we? Picture the concourse: a river of flesh, where elbows are currency, and breathing is a collective, desperate act. Meanwhile, the actual seats stand with the forlorn dignity of a forgotten uncle at a wedding. They are empty. Rows upon rows of them, gathering dust, mocking the masses who have paid their mortgage-equivalent for the privilege of standing like commuters on the Northern Line during a signal failure. FIFA, in its infinite wisdom, has now admitted this is not a bug but a feature. A concourse, they argue, is where the real atmosphere lives. The seat is a lie. A tax on the hopeful.
And Britain? Oh, Britain is not amused. The UK government has called for a seismic safety overhaul, a Great Reset of stadium design. My sources whisper that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is drafting a document so thick it could stop a bullet. They want rail seats. They want safe standing. They want fans to be able to see the pitch without having to perform a Cirque du Soleil routine. But will FIFA listen? Fat chance. The world footballing body moves with the speed of a glacier and the charm of a parking ticket.
The irony is so thick you could slice it with a penalty flag. FIFA claims to care about the fans, yet it treats them like cattle. They herd them into corridors, then wonder why tempers flare. I have seen the concourse at half-time. It is a Darwinian struggle for a sausage roll. It is a study in human endurance. And now the UK says: enough. We will have order. We will have seats that are sat upon. We will not have another Hillsborough, another Heysel, another moment where the love of the game turns into a tragedy of bureaucratic incompetence.
So let us raise a glass of that warm larger (it’s all we have left) to the great British safety crusade. May it succeed. May it force FIFA to look beyond its shiny boardrooms and into the sweaty, desperate face of the average fan. And may the concourse become a place of transit, not a sea of despair. As I always say: the beautiful game should not be played in the corridors.
